June 16--People who hawk ice cream or hot dogs, teach yoga or shill other goods and services in Los Angeles parks or on beaches could face escalating fines and possibly be charged with a misdemeanor under soon-to-be-reinstated rules that L.A. lawmakers voted to draft Tuesday.
The debate over the proposed ban pitted those who see mobile vending as an economic lifeline vital to a thriving metropolis against others worried about the legal risks of dangerous, unlicensed enterprises and the commercialization of green space.
Local activists pushing to legalize the pushcarts that speckle sidewalks in areas such as MacArthur Park and the Fashion District argued it made little sense to reinstate a long-suspended ban on vending in parks and on beaches while city leaders weigh whether to legalize and regulate sidewalk vending across the city.
"It's short-sighted," said Joseph Villela, director of policy and advocacy for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. "It continues to do something that hasn't worked."
Sidewalk vending is currently prohibited in Los Angeles. The city had also banned vending in parks and on beaches in the past, but suspended those rules for years as it fought two lawsuits that have now been resolved.
The decision to reinstate that ban troubled some on the Los Angeles City Council, which voted 13 to 2 to draft the restrictions. Councilman Curren Price, who voted against the rules, said he was worried about criminalizing poor people trying to survive.
The other city lawmaker who opposed the plan, Councilman Gil Cedillo, argued that misdemeanor charges could end up jeopardizing immigrants' chances to become citizens.
"Selling paletas -- those are popsicles -- selling paletas at a park should not carry a penalty that bars you from citizenship from life," Cedillo told fellow council members.
Backers such as Councilman Joe Buscaino said that the reinstated rules would protect the city from being sued if someone was hurt or sickened by the wares or services sold by unlicensed vendors. "Say someone gets hurt during an unpermitted yoga class, who would be liable?" Buscaino asked Senior Assistant City Atty. Valerie Flores during a Tuesday hearing.
"Arguably the city could be sued," Flores said.
Banning unpermitted vending could help defend the city from such suits, Flores said. If the city did not charge repeat offenders with a misdemeanor, she told lawmakers, vendors might continue plying their business in parks and simply pay the fines as a "cost of doing business."
Buscaino concluded: "This is something that we definitely need on the books."
Beyond worries about legal liability, others argued that parks are a kind of urban sanctuary that should be free from commercial activity. L.A.'s municipal prohibition on park and beach vending was suspended nearly a decade ago amid legal battles over vending and free speech on the Venice Beach boardwalk.
Parks officials and police said that in the years that L.A. has gone without the restrictions, it has been impossible to stop people from plying their trade in parks and on beaches, including exercise classes blaring music in Silver Lake Meadow, a vendor offering pony rides at Hansen Dam, and people spreading out blankets to shill their wares around Echo Park Lake.
City lawyers said now that the legal battles that spurred the city to suspend the ban are over, it was time for the city to reinstate the restrictions in parks and on beaches across the city, revising the wording to clearly protect freedom of speech.
Under the rules, selling goods or services in a public park would be illegal unless the vendor got city permission to do so. However, it would be legal for someone to sell books or paintings that he or she has written or created, as well as chiefly "expressive items" such as newspapers or bumper stickers.
City lawyers argued that the newly reinstated ban would not undercut any broader efforts to legalize sidewalk vending, since vendors could get permission to work in parks or beaches via a city license or permit. If the city did not reinstate the ban, Flores said, vendors would have no reason to seek a permit.
But members of the Los Angeles Street Vendor Campaign argued that the parks department currently lacks a clear, widely understood system to grant permits to park vendors. "It's not accessible to the community," said Janet Favela, a community organizer with the East L.A. Community Corp.
If the ban is ultimately reinstated, "I would probably be homeless," said Deborah Hyman, a vendor who sells beaded jewelry in Leimert Park, before the hearing. "This is my income. I need it. I got bills!"
L.A. leaders pressed forward with the plan amid yet another legal fight over vending: The city was sued earlier this year by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, a religious group that alleged the parks department stonewalled its request for permission to sell T-shirts outside the Griffith Observatory and then relegated it to a small area.
The "unwritten policy" of the city "is unconstitutional on its face," the group alleged in a lawsuit filed earlier this year, because "it vests unfettered discretion in city officials to grant or deny permits."
Rob Wilcox, a spokesman for City Atty. Mike Feuer, said settlement negotiations are ongoing in that case. The city has not yet filed a response to the claims.
The Tuesday vote is not the final step in the process of banning vending in parks and on beaches: City lawyers are now tasked with drafting the city rules. The final wording of the revised rules is expected to return to the council for approval later this week.
